Irish low-cost company Ryanair plans to open flights from Spain to Plovdiv in Bulgaria in the autumn of this year at the latest.
"Even though the company recently dropped plans for a line from the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv to Barcelona, Spain, a service between the two countries will be launched as early as this year," Doychin Anguelov, executive director of Plovdiv Airport, told business news provider Investor.bg.
"Tickets for the flights were on sale since December 2010 and demand was...

Bulgaria's competition watchdog said it has given the green light to the acquisition of WAZ Mediengruppe assets in Bulgaria by Ognyan Donev and Lyubomir Pavlov, who were recently accused of an attempted corporate mini-coup.
The ruling cements the decision of Bulgaria's Business Registry Agency to register 83% of the wide-circulation dailies "Trud" (Labor) and 24 Chasa (24 Hours) as property of Ognyan Donev, chairman and majority owner of Sopharma, the biggest Bulgarian generic drugmaker, and...

The publisher of the two wide-circulation Bulgarian dailies - Trud and 24 Hours - is set to become a public company as its shares will be listed on the country's stock exchange in the short term, the new owners have confirmed.
"We are very close to an initial public offering," Ognyan Donev, chairman and majority owner of Sopharma, the biggest Bulgarian generic drugmaker, who now holds a 40% stake in Media Group Bulgaria, told journalists and investors on Monday.
The statement came right...

The Spanish FCC company, building contractor of Danube Bridge II between the Bulgarian port Vidin and the Romanian Calafat, has received a concession to extract construction materials.
The information was reported by the company's press center, cited by the Bulgarian daily "Standart."
The decision has been made during the last cabinet meeting.
The concession has a 5-year term and allows the extraction of 432 000 tons.
FCC have been asking for permission to extract materials from...

The Lebanese company Oger Telecom will take over Bulgarian Vivacom within a month, according to unconfirmed reports.
Oger is owned by elite Lebanese family Hariri, which has included two PMs of Lebanon, Rafik and Saad, the first of whom founded the company.
Oger is directed by his older brother Mohammed Hariri, who has embarked on a project for expansion in Europe.
On Saturday, the Trud paper reported that Oger Telecom is expected to buy 25% of Vivacom, in addition to taking over its...

Bulgaria's anti-trust commission has fined two fuel distributors over their failure to cooperate in a probe into an alleged fuel price cartel that was launched amidst drivers' protests last month.
Litex AD has been slapped a fine of BGN 12 343 and Petrol AD - BGN 12 000.
The sanctions represent a percentage of the total turnover of the companies for 2009, the Bulgarian Commission on Protection of Competition (CPC) said.
Litex AD and Petrol AD were required to supply information to the...

After a substantial contraction for two years, Bulgaria's construction sector will start growing again in 2011, according to the "Bulgaria Infrastructure Report Q2 2011" Report by Research and Markets.
"We anticipate a moderate construction market recovery in Bulgaria over the period 2011-2015, after two years of contraction generated by the global economic downturn. The private sector should drive this recovery in the country's construction market, amid a wider economic upturn and fiscal...

The mayor of Bulgarian city of Burgas Dimitar Nikolov has spoken out against Turkish possible plans to build a NPP nearby the Bulgarian border on the Black Sea.
Turkey is currently researching the appropriate site to build its first NPP, with the third best site currently considered being nearby the town of Igneada, some 5 km of the Bulgarian border and the village of Rezovo on the Black Sea.
"We will be seaking all diplomatic means possible to dissuade our neighbors from building the NPP...

Bulgaria's state budget made almost BGN 16.8 M from the concessions of port and airport terminals in 2009, according to final reports of Bulgarian institutions, the government announced Wednesday.
The final 2009 figures confirm earlier statistics; in February, the Bulgarian Transport Ministry revealed preliminary figures showing that the government got BGN 16.7 M from port and airport concessions in 2010, a slight decrease year-on-year.
The facilities on concession in 2009 were the...

The Eltrade Company has wired to the Bulgarian Bank for Development, BBD, the amount of BGN 284 399 500 for the purchase of the bankrupt Kremikovtzi steel mill, located near the Bulgarian capital.
The news was reported Thursday evening by the Bulgarian news agency BTA, citing the mill's receiver, Tsvetan Bankov.
The transfer had a deadline of April 18. It is the full price of Kremikovtzi, which was sold for BGN 316 M, because the company had deducted the deposit of BGN 31 600 500, made to...

Sofia will soon have a brand-new bicycle path, connecting the "Mladost 4" district with the last metro stop in "Mladost 1," the Mayor of Sofia, Yordanka Fandakova, announced Thursday.
The 8-mk long path will be opened on May 24, 2011.
The Sofia City Hall is planning to also build, in the very near future, two more such paths – on "Gotse Delchev" boulevard, connecting South Park with the already existing path on "Tsar Boris III" boulevard and another one – on "Evlogi and Hristo Georgievi"...

Accor, a leading global hotel operator and market leader in Europe, has started a new project in Bulgaria in partnership with the Bulgarian investment company MHQ.
Accor's Bulgarian partnership was unveiled Thursday at a news briefing by Antoine Guego, Chief Operations Director of Accord for Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the Balkans together Borislav Spasov, Managing Director of MHQ Ltd, and Andrew Peirson from King Sturge, French Ambassador to Bulgaria Philippe Autie, and Philippe...

Gabrovo, located in the north-central part of the country, is Bulgaria's best city for doing business, showed a ranking compiled by the Sofia-based Institute for Market Economics (IME).
Ruse on the Danube and Sliven in the south are the other two cities that make it into the top three. The three least business-friendly cities are Vidin and Silistra, two other Danube cities, and southernmost Kardzhali.
The "Local Business Conditions 2011" survey is published for a second year and aims to...

The number of foreign tourists who visited Bulgaria in the first two months of 2011 grew by 6%, year-on-year, a senior official announced at the opening of the Cultural Tourism Expo in Veliko Tarnovo.
According to Ivo Marinov, Deputy Minister of Economy, who is in charge of tourism, in January-February, Bulgaria saw more tourists from Greece, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Macedonia, the UK and Russia. The visas issued to Russian tourists in January were 50% more than in the same month of last...

The Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) and the Areva company signed a cooperation memorandum covering crucial spheres of the country's energy sector on Wednesday.
Bulgaria may cooperate with the French company on the production and installment of wind turbines in the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, it was also made clear.
"Areva possesses great expert knowledge on wind turbines and just this type of wind turbines which are installed in the sea," Bulgaria's Economy and Energy Minister Traicho...

Bulgaria's Cabinet has approved its budget forecast for 2012-2014 which stipulates a gradual reduction of the budget deficit while ruling out tax increases.
According to the Finance Ministry, budget forecast, which was adopted by the government together with a strategy for the management of the public debt, lays out the fiscal goals for by accounting for the macroeconomic challenges before Bulgaria and the planned reforms.
It points out that the 2012-2014 forecast provides for a fiscal...

The residential property deals in the Bulgarian capital Sofia have witnessed price falls of 10% in the first quarter of this year in line with the general steep contraction of the market over the last two years, data of a realtor shows.
Price levels of residential property in Sofia stood on average at about ERU 830 per square meter in the first quarter of 2011, down from EUR 930 in the last three months of the previous year, according to research from Sofia based real estate agency Bulgarian...

Bulgaria has moved three spots ahead in the global information technology report of the World Economic Forum, and is now ranked 68th out of 138 countries.
In last year's Networked Readiness Index of the IT report Bulgaria was 71st out of 133 states.
The Top 10 in the "Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011: Transformations 2.0" released Tuesday is made up of Sweden, Singapore, Finland, Switzerland, the USA, Taiwan, Denmark, Canada, Norway, and South Korea. Germany is 13th, the UK...

The Bulgarian Solarpro company has received a EUR 1 M order from the Hungarian Green Solar Equipment Manufacturing for the delivery of laser equipment used for the production of thinfilm photovoltaic panels, which will be sold on the Chinese market.
The order includes 3 devices for laser scribing. Laser scribing is a part of the technological process for the production of photovoltaic panels. It has been used since the 80's, for reducing the cost and price of solar cells.
"The fact that...

The market of new cars in Bulgaria has registered a modest but nonetheless tangible year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2011.
A total of 4 638 new cars were sold in Bulgaria in January-March 2011 vs. 3 956 sales in the same period of 2010, a growth of 17%, according to data of the Association of Car Importers.
In March, a total of 1 816 new cars were sold, compared to 1 358 in February and 1 464 in January.
Bulgaria's all time record first quarter in terms of new car sales was...